Dream home a reality for £5M Lotto winners

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A retired couple from East Lothian are looking forward to making their dream home a reality after they scooped a massive £5,014,254 in the Lotto must-be-won draw on Wednesday 18th October.

Tommy, 68, and Linda Parker became multi-millionaires after matching five numbers and the bonus ball and can now build the perfect home to accommodate Linda who suffers from arthritis.

Due to her illness, Linda, 67, finds getting around unaided difficult. Tommy had always dreamt of building her the perfect home, never thinking that that dream home would one day become a reality. He said, “My son-in-law, who is a builder, always said that when we win the lottery he will build us a place. I can’t believe that this is real and we can actually do it!”

Lucky numbers

Father of two Tommy has always played the lottery and has bought his ticket from the same shop, at roughly the same time, for the last 16 years. His numbers were a combination of family birthdays, with the exception of the number 44 which he chose as it ‘seemed to come up’ and he thought it might be a winner one day.

Tommy said, “Since I retired, I always go and buy a paper at 9.30am and also buy my ticket. I always have the same routine – I take it home and put it under the biscuit barrel to keep safe. It’s kept up high on a shelf in the kitchen so the wife can’t reach it!

“I knew it was a must-be-won draw on Wednesday. We had gone to bed and I checked the winning numbers on the TV. I knew straight away we had five and woke the wife to tell her I thought we’d won some money on the lottery. I checked again and realised we also had the bonus ball too and the jackpot had rolled down to everyone who had these numbers. This meant we had won over £5million! That’s the quickest I’ve ever seen my wife get out of bed, EVER!”

Disbelief

The following morning, Tommy took his ticket to the newsagent and was told he needed to call Camelot. He said, “I still couldn’t believe it and kept checking the numbers to make sure they hadn’t changed. When the National Lottery Line opened, the woman I spoke to on the phone was so excited for me when she realised I was one of the lucky five from the draw the night before who’d shared the massive jackpot!”

With his head still spinning at the thought of winning and shaking all over, Tommy contacted his two daughters to share the fantastic news. Younger daughter Diane said ‘it just doesn’t happen to people like us’ and eldest daughter Tracey was getting her nails done when she got the call and couldn’t sit still long enough to get them finished.

What next?

Pressing on with their dream home is the priority for the lucky couple, who are originally from Northumberland, as well as looking after their children and their grandchild. Tommy and Linda also hope to do a spot of travelling and are keeping an eye out for a suitable cruise. They’ve not thought about anything else to spend their money on yet – but one thing is for sure – they are just both looking forward to a great retirement.

25th October 2017

For 25 years The National Lottery has been changing the lives of winners and supporting good causes across the UK. Since November 19th 1994 there have been 5,500 new millionaires created and over £40 billion has been given to good causes across the UK.

Results
Although every care is taken to ensure the accuracy of information containing National Lottery results, Camelot UK Lotteries Limited cannot take any responsibility for any errors or omissions. Prize winning and all aspects of the National Lottery games are subject to Games Rules and Procedures.

Number of winners each week
Average number of winners and millionaires each week based on National Lottery prizes won between April 2018 - March 2019.

National Lottery Projects
Since 1994, there have been more than 565,000 grants made – figures sourced from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport. Around £30 million raised weekly is an average based on April 2018 - March 2019.

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